By Dr Brian Mushimba
Why I’m running for President; the need for engineering precision in building a Zambia that works for ALL citizens
1. The Declaration: A New Kind of Leader for this unique moment
Fellow Citizens, as we approach the 13th of August 2026, we stand at a crossroads.
On one side, we have the politics of rhetoric—promises made and broken, symptoms treated while root causes fester.
On the other side, we have the path of precision, accountability, and delivery.
I am Dr. Brian Mushimba, and I am not offering you political slogans, we don’t need slogans. I am offering you a plan.
For 25 years, I haven’t been politicking; I have been building. I have designed and commissioned power plants that lit up cities. I have managed industrial balance sheets. I have relaunched a national airline not with magic, but with method. I am offering myself as your Engineer-in-Chief, to engineer a prosperous Zambia in our lifetime.
2. The Diagnosis: Applying the Engineering Principles & Mind
For too long, we have treated poverty, load-shedding, and unemployment as political talking points. An engineer knows that you cannot overhaul a machine until you understand the blueprint.
The Energy Crisis: We don’t just need ‘more rain’; we need grid stability and baseload power. I have designed over 10,000 MW of power generation. I know how to bring electricity onto the grid and keep it there. We will stop treating load-shedding as a seasonal inevitability and start treating it as a design flaw to be corrected.
The Economy: Our economy is like a complex system with failing components. We will move from symptom-management like tweaking interest rates, artificially propping up the currency to root-cause engineering. We will capacitate citizens to take leading roles in the economy including real ownership, optimize our industrial output, just as I did at Lafarge, to ensure our local industries are competitive and job creating.
Government Waste: A project has a budget and a timeline. This is how we are trained as engineers. My government will run on time and on budget. No more cost overruns on infrastructure. No more vague excuses. We will measure success the way an engineer does: by delivery against specification.
3. The Vision: The “Zambia Grid” Project
I am calling our national development plan ‘The Zambia Grid’ —not just for electricity, but for a connected, efficient, and prosperous nation.
Powering the Nation: We will stabilize ZESCO by bringing private-sector discipline and technical expertise to the utility. We will expand generation, transmission & distribution capacity so that factories can run 24/7 and children can study under reliable lights.
Logistics and Transport: Building on the relaunch of Zambia Airways, we will create a logistics hub that connects every province to the continent’s supply chains.
We will treat our roads, railways, and airports as a unified system, not isolated projects.
Data-Driven Governance: We will govern with data. Devolve powers out of the Presidency into government institutions. Strengthen rule of law. Every government institution will have key performance indicators. We will use technology to eliminate the corruption that hides in analog shadows.
4. The Contrast
While others are unsure or are proposing marginal changes and or improvements, we are advancing a radical technical agenda anchored on precision that delivers comprehensive national development in our lifetime.
I respect politicians, but this moment in our history does not call for a politician.
It calls for a builder. It calls for someone who can look at a national crisis—like the collapse of a currency or the failure of a harvest—and see a system of inputs and outputs that can be re-engineered for success.
They ask you to vote for them because they deserve power. I ask you to hire me because I can do the job. Just like I hired engineers to help me build power plants, develop algorithms to optimize outputs, I’m asking you to hire me to overhaul the grid of our national prosperity.”
5. The Call to Action
My fellow citizens, I ask that you don’t just vote for change this time. Vote for a skillset. Vote for a man who has spent his life where the work gets done.
Vote for real progress. Vote for engineering precision in governance. Vote Dr. Brian Mushimba.
Join the movement and be part of this revolution at our website oppzm.org
I ask for your vote .
#EngineerInChief
#HardReset
#MeritBasedSociety
#AbenaKankoyo